


operating at a loss

by avalonlights



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy you gay disaster, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Gay Billy Hargrove, M/M, Max is Amused, Steve Harrington's Scoops Ahoy Uniform, Unreliable Narrator, gratuitous use of the word fuck, one (1) ice cream cone was harmed in the making of this fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:20:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21795988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avalonlights/pseuds/avalonlights
Summary: Except he remembers- didn’t he hear one of the girls at the pool saying something about Harrington working there this summer? And something about a reallydumbuniform? Billy smirks. It had sounded tragic, even if they were probably exaggerating.Maybe this wouldn’t be such a waste of an afternoon after all. It’d been entirely too long since he’d gotten to put that prissy little bitch-face back on Harrington. To put him in hisplace. Now Billy can go tell him how dumb he looks inperson._OR: Billy finally gets to see Steve's Scoops uniform.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 9
Kudos: 166





	operating at a loss

When Billy finally has a day off, it figures that Maxine drags him to the damn new _mall_. The one they’d built this year specifically just to piss him off and ruin a perfectly good day of literally _anything else_ more bearable than watching hicks lose their minds over finally having The Gap and a food court.

Except he remembers- didn’t he hear one of the girls at the pool saying something about Harrington working there this summer? And something about a really _dumb_ uniform? Billy smirks. It had sounded tragic, even if they were probably exaggerating.

Maybe this wouldn’t be such a waste of an afternoon after all. It’d been entirely too long since he’d gotten to put that prissy little bitch-face back on Harrington. To put him in his _place_. Now Billy can go tell him how dumb he looks in _person_.

It’s only after he rounds the corner following Max into Scoops (he should have _realized_ she would make an uncanny beeline for free ice cream from Steve before meeting the boys, but it _was_ at least a convenient reason to go by…) and looks up that he realizes the mistake he’s made. 

Harrington, who has come out from behind the counter to greet Max is wearing what is very much NOT an exaggeration of the conversation he’d overheard at the pool. In fact, he feels a visceral flash of what must be anger because those few giggled words had not prepared him for _this_ , they did not come _close_ to describing _this_. 

The _ridiculous_ shorts. The knee high socks. On _Harrington_. The fucking _hat_ , which Harrington sweeps off his head with a haunted look while Max laughs.

Billy’s mouth is _dry_. His mind is suddenly devastatingly void of a single coherent _thought_ , let alone his usual arsenal of carefully crafted insults. A barren desert with a single sailor-suited tumbleweed blowing through. He wants to _die_. Which is of course when Maxine turns and fucking _points_ at him.

Harrington’s face immediately shutters. “…Hargrove.” The goofy grin is replaced with a wary “god why me” look. Billy can barely muster up any disappointment for that because he’s still drawing the world’s biggest, longest, hardest, fattest fucking BLANK.

“Hey King Steve, sweet _Halloween_ costume. All aboard the S.S. Loser, is it?” Or maybe even: “Well that’s just fucking _sad_ , Harrington.” He definitely says. He definitely. He. He can’t make a _single_ word come out. He’d _thoroughly_ deny the high pitched wheeze that ghosts past his lips, too far away for them to hear. Lets out air like he’s been sucker punched.

Billy realizes with devastating clarity that his face is on fucking _fire_ , which just _doesn’t happen to him_ , and something has to give or this is going to be un-salvageable.

He rips his gaze away, toward Max who has the gall to look… amused? Snaps his mouth shut. Turns on his heel and makes the kind of silent retreat he _never_ allows himself outside the house. Enjoy your ice cream, Maxine. Fuck.

Fucking _Harrington_.

If Billy comes back to the mall next week with a very surprised but agreeable Max, heads to Scoops (for what he’s definitely not calling Round 2 in his head) after she’s fucked off to meet her little nerd friends, and orders a vanilla swirl cone that he sits and licks at _angrily_ while glaring at Steve as he juggles orders, out of _pure spite_ , that’s really nobody’s business.

If he grins when Steve, before Billy’s hurled a single insult, makes a strangled noise and retreats into the back room while his _fucking girlfriend_ looks nonplussed, that’s definitely nobody’s business either. He’ll admit she manages to make the stupid uniform look somewhat more dignified than Steve does. Somehow.

Billy smirks and crunches the cone. He thinks just maybe he won this round.

**Author's Note:**

> ~~YOU DIDN’T WIN SHIT BILLY ALJSLFJSLF~~
> 
> Did I just write 600 words of Billy absolutely failing to cope [[x](https://flippyspoon.tumblr.com/post/189585808106/hc-if-billy-had-showed-up-at-scoops-and-actually)] with Steve’s Scoops uniform? I did. I’m an [artist](https://avalonlights.tumblr.com/tagged/avalonlights%20art), not a writer, and this is shockingly the first bit of fic I’ve ever finished or posted in years and years of fandom. Totally unbeta’ed obviously. Blame the compelling power of Harringrove. <3 Also, I don’t imagine Billy would be this oblivious to his own motives, or as okay with them, but that’s how this thing fell out on paper and I’m done tinkering. ;)


End file.
